Vtopos

About

2-6pm at StudioRCA RIverlight(1 Riverlight Quay, Nine Elms Lane, SW8 5AU

6-9pm at Embassy Gardens(at the corner of Ponton Road and Nine Elms Lane - SW8 5BL)

Part of the Chelsea Fringe Festival 

“I think there something interesting about the garden as a machine but also how the industrial revolution changed the landscap e. Battersea has a history of growing food with its' own Battersea artichoke (Probably a Jerusalem artichoke) and the Nine Elm melon.”(Lou-Atessa Marcellin)

2 - 6pm /// StudioRCA Riverlight  - afternoon of talks, fresh juices by Lou-Atessa Marcellin and a print installation by Erola Arcalis

2–3PM /// PEA PROPOSALS

The pleasure and politics of public art is the interest of pea proposals set up by artists Sarah Staton and Demelza Watts. This research group provides an umbrella for considering how 20 years of socially engaged public art impacts on the object. In this StudioRCA talk, longer histories of art and gardens will be considered, and the garden's role as horizontal plinth for sculpture will be celebrated

3-3:30PM /// FRICHE presents DIASPORE 

Presentation of the Diaspore project by Friche (Lou-Atessa Marcellin & Edward Hill)

4-4:30PM  /// FUTURE FARM LAB

Phoebe Tickell and team.

Future Farm Lab explores the future of our food and what we can do to shape more sustainable and resilient food system.Along with their presentation they will be serving up some thought-provoking and taste-tantalising refreshments!

4:30-5PM /// AGROECOLOGY 

Edward Brial and John Bertolaso and Gabriel Brückner

The trio will be presenting their research on the future of agroecology, looking at the potential of indigenous orphan crops to contribute to more resilient agricultural systems and to food security worldwide.

6-9pm at Embassy Gardens - At the corner of Ponton Road and Nine Elms Lane - SW8 5BL

Nora Silva with Platform Desayuno

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ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS:

Erola Arcalís ( Maó, Menorca, 1986 ) expressive works evolve around botanical analogies and mythologies. Enabling a mode of storytelling around constructed sets. Her work Absurd Grafting combines the paused process of still life photography with installation, to manipulate botanical objects, presenting them as though they were sculptures.  The interplay between synthetic and natural is further explored in her series Paradise Lost, where crops of a diorama of the Garden of Eden are represented.

Works she has exhibited most recently include Paradise Lost, Morgan Showroom, London, April, 2016; Absurd Grafting installation, Work In Progress show, Royal College of Art, London, 2016; Natura Morta, Dalston Eastern Curve Garden, London, 2015.

Nora Silva (1988) is a Spanish-Chilean artist interested in addressing political issues through the informality of jokes and the seduction of the uncanny. Defining political by its Greek etymology which refers to its collective sense: ‘the process of making uniform decisions applying to all members of a group’, Silva’s practice is intimately linked to the social. She also utilizes food very often as medium, material or process. http://norasilva.com

FRICHE

Friche is a studio  founded by artist Lou-Atessa Marcellin and engineer Edward Hill creating greenspaces focusing on growing food and connecting with the natural world for urban communities.

FUTURE FARM LAB

Phoebe Tickell is a researcher at Imperial College, part of a synthetic biology lab investigating algae. Her research are investigating the potential of certain cyanobacterial strains to play a role in our future of food. Together with cellular agriculturist Abi Glencross  and science communicator Sophie Peri they form Future farm lab.

AGROECOLOGY

Edward Brial and John Bertolaso and Gabriel Brückner.

This three students from the IDE course (Innovation Design Engineree) will present their current research around urban agriculture.

PEA PROPOSALS

The pleasure and politics of public art is the interest of pea proposals set up by artists Sarah Staton and Demelza Watts. This research group provides an umbrella for considering how 20 years of socially engaged public art impacts on the object. In this Studio RCA talk, longer histories of art and gardens will be considered, and the garden's role as horizontal plinth for sculpture will be celebrated. Sarah Staton is a Senior Tutor in Sculpture at the RCA and Demelza Watts is a recent RCA alumini. 

* Within the 150 years anniversary of Thomas Moore ‘s  book Utopia, we would like to address his critic of enclosed land: the practice of enclosure—the enclosing of common land—and the subsequent poverty and starvation of people who are denied access to land because of sheep  farming.